The government could save £436m a year by getting just 5% more single parents into work, a charity has claimed, as it called on George Osborne to invest more in jobs and training.

Single parent support group Gingerbread said the reduced need for benefits would save £272m a year, with more money flowing in from increased income tax and national insurance contributions.

Unveiling the findings of the research, commissioned from the Institute for Social and Economic Research to coincide with Osborne's spending review, the charity said help to boost single parent employment must be an "explicit part" of any growth plan.

Gingerbread is launching a campaign for the government to set a target of getting 250,000 more single parents in work by 2020, something it says will bring long-term savings and "help thousands of families to escape poverty".

Fiona Weir, chief executive of Gingerbread, said: "It's time that single parents were given a greater role to play in our economic recovery than simply bearing the brunt of many of the government's welfare cuts."

She highlighted the fact that 59% of single parents in the UK are in work. "We know that the majority of the rest want to be. But they need the government to help with childcare costs, create more flexible jobs that pay a decent wage, and invest in skills and training," she added.

Research earlier this year by Gingerbread suggested that efforts to get single parents off benefits and into jobs were failing. Official job outcome statistics showed that a year into the government's work programme, single parents were a third less likely less likely to get a sustainable job compared with other participant groups, the charity claimed.